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For any Christians on the site: is that good enough to get him into heaven?
It's such a great question!
Here's the relevant bit that is attributed to him:
Did he mean it? He was dying, he knew he was dying, so he probably had more reason to mean in than the rest of us, but like how do you measure sincerity of something like that?
I don't know how good a representation of Christian I am (in the past at least I was quite serious about faith, almost became a Franciscan novitiate...), but I kind of connect this sort of thinking to the idea of forgiveness in general.
If there is such a thing as a sin, and it takes you away from God, and God offers a way back which entails you acknowledging that you sinned and feeling some sense of remorse or not wanting to do it again, then all that is required is wanting to be closer to God. Of course, "wanting to be closer to God" isn't exactly a recipe.
I was wondering similar thoughts to you when I read Adams last note there. My wonder was more along the lines of why did he need to tell the world about it? For me, at least, it cheapens it a little, but maybe others feel it is a "powerful witness."
Maybe it just comes down to being scared of death and nothing afterward, and wanting there to be more. In my book that might be enough if enough is relevant.
Thanks for the thoughtful response.
Maybe it just comes down to being scared of death and nothing afterward, and wanting there to be more. In my book that might be enough if enough is relevant.
This is getting close to it for me. I think a person can legitimately want to believe something that they don't in fact believe; or want to want something that they don't in fact want. Like, a meta-desire for religion, even though they can't, in truth, claim to believe the religious tenets.
This always seemed quite the metaphysical pickle. Adams seems like an example of it -- scared, probably desperate to believe, but unable to, but willing to make the Hail Mary (no pun intended), just in case. I've wondered for years whether a thing like this can "count", and I know people don't like that phrasing, but to me it's the most honest phrasing that describes a significant swathe of humans on this planet, and is therefore worth tackling directly.
There's a famous cry in the Bible, "I believe, help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24) I think many deathbed confessions of faith, even if motivated out of fear, are genuine (but i also can't say that all are). It's also worth noting that the Bible does not shy away from using self-interest as a reason for believing in Jesus. The message of the gospels isn't that you should believe in spite of your self interest. It's that you should believe because believing in Jesus is the best thing for you and your eternal soul.
However, I think a popular misconception is that belief means mere intellectual or verbal assent, but it is much more than that.
I would say, for those with a meta-desire for religion, why not just try it out then? If you're not sure you believe, you can try to dive deeper and spend time with the community, and see if that changes.
There is a lot of gatekeeping in christianity. One of the reasons I tend to not be a fan of organized religion. Although I do think there are some positives. Faith should be on one's own terms.
My wife is fairly religious and takes the kids to church every week. I don't go. We have come to an agreement on how the kids will be raised as relates to religion/faith.
Last time I went to church was my daughter's first communion last year and I left extremely annoyed at having to listen to the priest lecture little kids for an hour about how they must put Jesus first in their lives and they have to coerce their parents to take them to church.
So this is a long winded way of saying there should be no rules as to whether you jumped through the appropriate hoops to get into heaven. I don't think God is sitting around thinking "nah you didn't believe hard enough, to hell with you". I think faith and trying to be a good person is more important than jumping through arbitrary hoops created by the church. But that is just my own opinion.
I don't think God is sitting around thinking "nah you didn't believe hard enough, to hell with you".
It has always seemed like a very small god that would do a thing like that, but some people are very literalist, and it's interesting to hear how they construe the situation.
The question isn't whether any action he did or didn't take was good enough to get him into heaven. By that metric we'd all fail. The more important question is whether he trusts that Jesus's death and resurrection are sufficient for his justification before God.
it's a natural human instinct to think in terms of quid pro quo and earning our way into heaven
If you think he is a Christian and are aware of the way he communicates about such things I would hope you are praying that someone close to him would speak to him about it. If you are a Christian and understand that people are communicating that Trump is also a Christian should you also be concerned that this is leading people astray from the grace of God and work of Jesus taught by all Christian traditions for 2000 years?
For those that might misunderstand. I'm not pretending I know the heart or life of Trump or anyone else. I pray that he has put his faith in Jesus and that he is on a path to following Jesus and that all the things I have heard him say are just from ignorance. I take no glee in anyone being outside of the family of God. But it is important for Christians to be clear about such things.
Yeah, I try to avoid proclaiming that anyone's faith is genuine or not from a distance. That's between them and God, and the people closest to them.
But if they say something that I think is theologically incorrect (as Trump has many times), I don't mind pointing that out either.
Thus my earlier question. Is the way Adams approached this valid, or isn't it?
So the heart of it is his actual trust and belief? And if a person does not have that belief, then actions like his (paraphrasing) "I don't really think this is true, but I hope it is" aren't sufficient?
This seems consequential, since a person doesn't have much control over what she believes or doesn't; but she does have some control over what she does. A person can sign up for something by force of will, but not believe in something by force of will, using the usual definition of "will".
I've never been clear on what "counts" wrt Christian salvation.
If you read any of the four gospels, you will see that the primary concern is with the identity of Jesus Christ and his mission. The gospel (which means good news) is that Jesus came to die for the sins of the world so that "whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). But the "belief" here is not mere intellectual assent. Even in the Bible, it's written "Even the demons believe--and shudder!" (James 2:19). So, beyond just intellectual assent, it's also a personal submission and placing of trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior: "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (Romans 10:9)
I think there are a few questions that I'd ask of anyone to really get a sense of what they believe and whether they have a "saving faith":
- Who is Jesus?
- What did he die for?
- Why did he need to die?
- Why was Jesus resurrected?
- If you're at the gates of heaven, and God asks why he should let you in, what would you say?
These questions I think highlight the main elements of what Christians believe w.r.t. salvation. (Catholics and Protestants will also differ on some details).
Always happy to talk more. If you're interested, I encourage you to go visit a local church and chat with some of the people there.
RIP was certainly familiar with Dilbert and I became aware of his other work through Naval Ravikant talking about his work. Never followed him that closely but since he announced he had stage 4 cancer I have been fascinated with his journey to end of life. All the things he was trying and then his last minute Pascal's wager.